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All serious Pocket PC gamers know Orions: Legend of Wizards, by far the BEST Turn-based strategy game for the platform, of which I’ve published a Strategy Guide HERE. The homepage of the game is HERE. Unfortunately, there's (still?) no trial version; hopefully, this will be fixed now. However, I think you'll be absolutely pleased with the upgrade, even if you can't play the trial: for $9.95, it's quite a bargain. That is, just go and purchase the update - you won't regret it.
The developers have announced the forthcoming expansion pack, Orions: The Second Age, in late July. Since then, I’ve been waiting it really with anticipation pretty much comparable to waiting for Starcraft’s expansion set, Starcraft: Brood War. Thanks to the developers, I’ve received a Release Candidate version of the expansion pack. And, yes, I LOVE it. It’s REALLY good. (Note that the reviewed version is exactly the same as the final one.)
First, let’s see what has been introduced (The Good), what is (still) missing (The Bad), what has been changed and, finally, I give you some very useful tips and tricks. All this with TONS of screenshots.
The good
A LOT of (THIRTY!) new cards, most of them having GREAT spells (abilities), further increasing the game experience. Now, the game is really like playing chess or a similar board game!
The Campaign mode has been greatly enhanced; for example, the feature requests of Doug Goldring and Ben Stanley have (almost) all been implemented. For example, now, you receive bonuses in your chosen element; you can quickly teleport between words and you can buy any card on “card black markets” any time. (Screenshots of the latter in all stages of pre-building, building and using: 1 2 3 4)
The Dual mode (the one that I play the most) has been enhanced a lot, mostly as a response to my feature requests / complaints. For example, now, you can select between a smaller (4 cards) and a larger (6 cards with spells enabled and 5 without) desk, whether the deck should be uniform or not (in size; non-uniform decks vary in size - some elements can have even 7-8 cards, while others only 3-4) etc. I'll elaborate on these questions later.
There are some welcome game balance improvements; most importantly, Life / Chimera has been made much more expensive and a bit weaker and Life / Cerberus a bit more usable.
The bad
Unlike with, say, the Starcraft: Brood War update, there isn’t new music. Not that it’d be missing – the in-game music is REALLY great (and, if you don’t like it, you can just change it to anything else if it’s a .MOD tracked module file).
The game isn’t compatible with MS Smartphones (WM Standard devices - that is, devices without a touch screen). It wouldn’t be very hard for the developer to create at least a QVGA (no real need for 176*220 conversions any more, I think, as those low-end models are quickly phased out, except for some current models like HP's new iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger) Smartphone-compliant version as the game could be easily played with the D-pad / the Action button and/or the dialpad.
No hi-res (W)VGA support (it'd be GREAT to see the hand-drawn artwork of cards in their full glory on VGA devices - even without the (absolutely gorgeous) particle effects & other animations!)
There's no option of decks bigger than 6 (without spells, 5) cards. I'd certainly welcome even bigger decks - even ones that have ALL the cards.
TCP/IP multiplayer still only supports direct IP connections and there's still no central server (Game Lounge)-based solution like that of battle.net in Blizzard's games. This also means you won't be able to play if both of the would-be players are NAT'ed / behind a firewall.
Unfortunately, there's no LAN broadcast discovery either in order to quickly find your opponent either - that is, without having to look up her or his IP address and entering it directly. Fortunately, the title, once you enter the IP address, will remember it next time you start multiplayer mode; this is definitely good news as, in general, Bluetooth PAN and Wi-Fi peer-to-peer IP addresses don't change if you the same Pocket PC's participate in the local peer-to-peer net.
I REALLY hope the developer WILL (also - keeping direct TCP connections are also important to make it possible to play over Internet connectionless LAN's) introduce a game lounge so that you'll be able to
1, find other opponents to play if, for example, your friends aren't available to play against - just like on most other multiplayer gaming lounges like Battle.net
2, you try to play a remote friend but both of you are firewalled / NAT'ed and, therefore, no direct connection can be built up in either direction.
I also hope he'll add in-game chatting.
(See the Multiplayer Bible for more info on all these questions - why for example in-game chatting can be useful, what LAN broadcast discovery means etc.)
There are some (minor) bugs: for example, Earth / Giant Spider's Spider Web (another pretty useful spell to make a given enemy card unable to attack in the next turn) costs, in reality, three Earth elements - as opposed to what (two) the help page suggests. Also, Water / Leviathan, as opposed to what the card description states, can cast Curing (the price / performance ration-wise, best owner HP increasing ability of all) any time - even when the number of your Water elements is only 1 (which is less than 6). This will work even with Water = 0 because of an internal bug. That is, if you DO have Water / Leviathan, make sure you increase the HP of your owner every time you can do so - against, this is the cheapest way to do so. And, don't forget you can do this even when you otherwise have no Water at all. You can easily make use of this bug if you have at two Leviathans on the board and use both to heal your owner every turn: if your Water is continuously staying at 1, you can gain 8 health for a mere one Water element. (Or, even more, if you have even more Leviathans.)
There's no option of giving the SAME cards to both players in Dual mode. This, while certainly makes duels much more boring (not knowing at first what cards the enemy has adds a lot to the game - for example, if you go for, for example, mass-low level cards and it's only later that you're faced with an Earth / Quicksands spell, your (initial) strategy may turn out to be fatal), may be required by some: mostly people that want to avoid losing just because they were unlucky to get some worse cards, while their opponent got better ones – I know well enough from my (Star)Crafter past that even the slightest game balance nuances like this can result in a LOT of difference in a game between two very good players
(Balance) changes to old cards
Compared to the last, 1.02 version, there are some minor changes to old cards as well to improve the game balance (not to give an unfair advantage to a player that has the luck to possess a given card, while the other doesn’t).
Life / Chimera is no longer Level 11, but Level 13 and has the strength of 10 instead of 11. That is, it’s no longer one of the best cards – in previous versions, it was probably the best card (unless the enemy had the cheap Earth / Forest Spirit to absorb his damage while taking out the card with spells; most importantly, the, against Chimera, most useful / cheapest Water / Sea Justice), particularly if you often used on powerful spells like Fire / Fireball because of Chimera's halving their price.
The level of Death / Grim Reaper has been decreased from 12 to 11. This is also welcome as this card is definitely inferior to, say, Life / Chimera.
Life / Magic healer has slightly increased HP (12 instead of 10) and the same stands for Fire / Cerberus (8 instead of 6). Now, the latter is REALLY usable, particularly when backed up with a Fire / Diablo to continuously restore its health / increase its attack. Then, it really becomes a killer because of the damage done to three cards at the same time and a HP that most other cards can't match in one step to finally get rid of the card.
Note that, in my opinion, Earth / Satyr is, far too cheap for what it offers and its level, 2 (health: 10, attack / strength: 3), makes the game a bit unbalanced, particularly when you compare its level, health, strength and negative side effects to other low-level cards also used to quickly increase a given element. These cards are as follows: Fire / Demon (lvl 5 / HP 12 / strength 2, and it decreases Earth!), Water / Nixie (4 / 10 / 3 with an additional Fire -> Water conversion ability), Air / Nymph (3 / 12 / 1), Life / Priest (4 / 9 / 1, and it also decreases Death!), Life / Apostate (5 / 14 / 4, but quickly empties Life, having a pretty bad Life -> Death conversation ratio), Death / Ghost (3 / 13 / 3, but it decreases owner's life by 5 for every Death increase!) etc.
As can clearly be seen, no other element has the same cheap and powerful "quick increase" card, only Earth. Hope the developers consider raising the level of this card to, say, 4.
New settings
The settings have changed a lot: it received a completely new, second page (which can be flipped with the “Next page” icon):
It’s here that you can, for example, enable “Extended deck” so that each element has six (without spells, five) cards (instead of four).
Also, it’s in here (with "No spells") that you can disable spells. If you find some of the spells too strong and making an adverse impact on the balance of the game (for example, a player having really good destruction / kill spells like Fire / Fireball has a definite advantage over a player that doesn't), you'll want to check in this checkbox. It' greatly contribute to additional game balance.
Note that, should you disable spells, the value / usability of Air / Astral Cloud, Life / Unicorn and Life / Chimera decreases. For example, then, you will only want to use Air / Astral Cloud to negate the, by default, 2 damage of Life / Ethereal because Air / Astral Cloud decreases the impact of direct attack done to it by 2. (Alternatively, you can use the Air / Gargoyle with the (pretty expensive) Petrification ability, which, essentially, does the same and, therefore, adds full protection against Life / Ethereal.)
Without spells, of course, the game MAY become a bit less interesting – as with decent Real-Time Strategies like Starcraft, spells add tio the game experience. Of course, this option doesn't disable card spelling abilities - that is, disabling spells doesn't mean something like taking, for example, away all the very good spells (EMP, Plague etc.) in Starcarft - just the opposite, it may help in balancing the game.
Also, you can instruct the game ("More elements at start") to give you more elements at start (generally, up to 8) so that you don't need to start with low-level cards, but can go straight for stronger ones.
Finally, with "Random first move", you can instruct the game to select the first player to move in random - no longer will you always be the first to cast a card first (or to skip your turn, if there's no decent card to be placed).
All in all, as can be seen some (but, unfortunately, not all) of my previous, particularly dual / multiplayer-related remarks / recommendations have been implemented.
sweet i liked this game
Some tips, also showing (some of) the new cards & spells
(Note that this section is in NO way a full list of all the thirty new cards. I’ll update the official Strategy Guide after having played the expansion some weeks so that the new information I tell you can be as accurate as possible.)
If you can, get at least two (or even more – make extensive use of Fire / Daemon or Fire / Firelord, when available, to quickly bump up your fire elements) Fire / Diablos on the deck. They will be able to strengthen each other very easily. In the following screenshot, I’ve brought five of them to the deck and used their “Diabolic Path” spell to strengthen / heal them in a round-robin fashion:
For example, I’ve cast this spell six times on the third Diablo (just over Grim Reaper); this is why it has the strength of 18 (instead of the default 6) and still pretty high HP.
(Note that I’ve cheated a bit in order to make this screenshot: I’ve edited the “LEVEL” attribute in cards/diablo.inf so that it has the level 1 in order to be able to quickly take a screenshot).
If you don't have the necessary Fire elements to go for mass-Diablos, you may still want to use this ability with any other Fire creature. I recommend the now-healthier Cerberus to be concurrently used with the spell - you can quickly (in 4-5 turns) make it a REALLY powerful, deadly card because of its attacking three opposing cards at the same time.
If you plan to / can (for example, the enemy doesn’t have spells like Life / Gods Wrath or cards like Life / Paladin with both its quick Exorcizm spell and tripled damage to Undead (Death) cards to quickly get rid of your low-level Undeads if you use the abilities I’ll explain now to summon / create them) go the mass-Undead way.
One way to do this is Death / Black Mage’s “Extract Soul” spell to quickly transfer a non-Undead creature to a Death / Ghost with 15 health. This is, incidentally, a very commonly used strategy of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the game. Sometimes, I find, it's overdoing this because it transfers newly-placed, weaker cards (for example, Air / Nymph) to Ghosts even if it could still use the abilities of these cards for some 2-3 rounds at least.
Alternatively, with Death / Necromancer, using its “Dark summon” spell, you can populate the slots with Death / Zombies. This is a lot cheaper (costs only 2 Death elements as opposed to their original, 4 price) than summoning it from your cards (if they're available at all).
If you, in any way (for example, by using the above-explained abilities to summon / transfer cards or just go the traditional way), you can use the, with several Death cards in play, VERY useful and cheap Death / Undead Swarm spell to instruct your undeads to hit their targets twice in the same turn. Again, it's a very useful spell if you go mass-Undead!
Of course, going mass-Undead can be pretty risky if the enemy has spells like Life / Gods Wrath and, if you "only" use (low-level) Death / Zombies and/or Death / Ghosts, Earth / Quicksands. However, changing your cards to (pretty healthy) Ghosts can be a good idea when they, otherwise, would be killed in the next round OR they're very weak and you don't need their abilities any more. Just remember that all attacks on Ghosts will also do some damage to yourself - use them with care (for example, together with Water / Ice Guard to decrease the damage done to the owner by 50%)!
Earth / Python is also VERY-VERY useful, both its default, always-effective ability to quickly decrease the attack strength of the opposite card and its "Suffocate" ability, with which you can quickly kill any enemy card with health less than 6. This, as with Fire / Diablo's, as has already been seen, also VERY good Diabolic Path, doesn't require any elements to use. This card should be one of your most often used cards - particularly if your opponent makes extensive use of Earth / Forest Spirit (original HP: 3; that is, less than 6). You can get rid of the latter cards at once with Python.
Water / Scylla is useful, particularly if you play the AI and it extensively uses this card. Because of a bug? in the AI, it'll continuously be healing itself (even if you only damage it for, say, 2, in a turn, it will quickly re-heal itself for 5), which means it will very quickly increase your Water elements. In these cases, what I recommend is letting the card on the board (don't kill it quickly) so that you constantly receive a LOT of Water elements because the constant re-healing. Just put a card not taking (much) damage from the card in the opposing slot: Water / Ice Wizard (because it only takes 1 damage from Water creatures), Earth / Forest Spirit or the new Life / Etherial.
Water / Kraken is very-very useful – it delivers damage in the following way. If the card opposing it has empty slot on neither on the left nor on the right side, it’ll deliver 10 extra damage to the creature (that is, it'll receive 17 damage by default). If the opposing card has an empty slot on its right, it’ll be immediately be shifted in there (after having been hit by your card) and, therefore, if you have a card in the opposing slot (that is, on the right of your Kraken), it'll also attack the card (instead of the enemy owner) in the same round.
Water / Tython can be a good alternative to other means of healing your cards, particularly if you need a healing up to 15 HP's. Note that you MUST have at least one free slot on the board for this to work - as opposed to most alternative mass-healing means, which aren't card abilities but spells themselves.
The card itself costs 7 Water elements and the Disperse ability (which does the healing) costs another 2. That is, you can have at most four of your cards to be healed for 9 Water elements, which is quite a bargain if you take the price / performance ratio of other healing spells (Earth / Revie, Earth / Restructure (price: 6, +3 HP and 6 healing) or the new Life / Cure Wounds (price: 6; heals up to 6 HP's but not severely damaged cards, which receive no HP at all) and Life / Eternal Light (price: 8 Life + losing 3 Death elements; healing: 5 + causing 5 damage to enemy undead cards) into account. Of course, if you have all your slots filled (no place for an additional Tython) and/or don't need that much HP's and/or you have a Life / Chimera on the board (which, as is well known, halves the price of all spells), you may still want to prefer the latter spells.
Still speaking of healing, Life / Knight can also prove useful - it automatically heals the weakest card by two each turn. (Incidentally, sometimes it has chosen another card to heal so I'm not really sure the algorithm selecting the card to heal is correct or well thought-out.)
Also, if your opponent goes (mass-)Undead and frequently uses Death card abilities (for example, Death / Black Mage’s Extract Soul, very frequently used by the AI, Death / Necromancer's Dark summon etc.), the caster (Death) card will be hit for 3 damage.
In addition, this card has a REALLY useful, mass-killer ability, Concentrate, which is even better than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike (which only delivers 5 damage to ONE target card at the cost of 2 Life). This ability, which costs 3 Life (that is, only slightly more expensive than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike), is particularly useful against all the enemy cards. It delivers 6 damage to the chosen, target enemy card (unless it's a Life creature) and the same damage, divided by the number of cards, to all the others. It has no adverse effects like damaging Knight by 3 upon attacking a Death card either (unlike with Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike); only (default) abilities like the Fire Shield of Fire / Efreet will return half of the damage to it.
All in all, ALWAYS try to get this card on your deck and make sure you always use its Concentrate ability! (Of course, you'll also want to try to bring an Air / Zeus on the deck in order to use its really cool (8 damage) and cheap (1 Air) Lightning ability if your enemy (frequently) uses cards with level 6 or below.)
If you go for mass-Earth (because, for example, your enemy doesn't have Earth / Titan, whose Thunder Fist ability is particularly effective (3 damage for each of them at the expense of 1 Air only) against Earth creatures OR he's preferring the use of the new Earth / Force of Nature spell, which has absolutely no effect on Earth creatures), you'll want to use Earth / Enchanter (level: 7), which also auto-heals other cards - but Earth cards only (as opposed to Knight, which heals any other type) and only by 1 each turn.
It has another feature: it heals all the other cards by five upon reaching one HP (but NOT upon simply dying) through, for example, the Death / Plague spell, other spells or direct attacks, only leaving 1 HP for the card.
Air / Kronos is a VERY useful card, for three reasons:
- its (pretty expensive: it costs 3 Air) Aging ability is particularly useful against high-HP cards (for example, Life / Chimera, Water / Leviathan, Fire / Infernal etc. to quickly reduce their (both maximal and current) HP to the half of the original. As it's the original that is halved, you will want to use the ability as soon as your enemy brings the card to the board - then, your first, subsequent attack will already decrease the halved HP.
Speaking of high-HP cards, you should also pay special attention to the new Earth / Force of Nature spell too, which deals damage to each enemy creature equal to half of its remaining health and is, therefore, REALLY useful. Note that it has no effect to Earth cards.
- attacks creatures of a level less than 10 with additional damage, equal to the HP difference. This means it'll attack for example a level 2 Earth / Satyr with (default) 4+(10-2) damage.
- one of the VERY few cards to deliver direct, and pretty high damage to the, otherwise, very though Earth / Etherial.
Life / Avatar is pretty strange and, frankly, I don't know why it's here at all. I consider it a pretty worthless card because, despite its high (10) level and double damage taking (the owner takes the same damage as Avatar, unless, of course, you have a Water / Ice Guard on the board to divide the damage by two), its strength isn't particularly high (7) and it has no special abilities / features either. Had it ANY extra ability, it'd be a nice card. Now, on the other hand, I in no way recommend it, not even together with the (cheap: 1 Air) Protect ability of the also-new Air / Guardian or the (expensive: 3 Earth) Spider Web ability of the also new Earth / Giant Spider.
Life / Etherial can be a real pain in the back for your opponent to get rid of and is excellent against “tough”, powerful, high-strength units like Water / Kraken or Life / Chimera; in this respect, it's pretty much similar to our old friend, Earth / Forest Spirit (the latter, of course, does receive (some) damage from other cards and spelling abilities).
Note that if your opponent has the Death / Lich card, it’ll deliver 5 damage to your Etherial every turn (but it won't deal any damage when it's summoned - as opposed to other cards). The same will happen with Air / Kronos as well - it'll deliver lvl 10- lvl 7 = 3 damage to Etherial each turn. If Kronos can't attack the card directly (another card is placed against Etherial), it can still use its Aging ability to reduce the health of the card to four (and, then, you can quickly Suffocate it with Python). Also, Earth / Echidna will eventually kill this card because of its poisoning it (poisons also kills Etherial - both used as card (default) ability or full spells). Finally, if you have Fire / Efreet, you can effectively use its implicit fire shield (or, if it's not in the opposite shot, its Fire Shield ability, preferably on another Fire creature to avoid losing health every turn) - it'll send back one damage (that is, damages Etherial by one) each time Etherial attacks.
To my knowledge, these are the only creatures that can do any kind of harm to this card by direct attack. Of card abilities (spells), you can Suffocate it Earth / Python (after damaging it with something like Fire / Fire Spikes, Water / Poison or the new, really effective Water / Poison Storm - or, with the other means (Aging, Fire Shield etc.) outlined above). You can also consume it with Water / Kraken, but the latter also consumes all other cards and, therefore, can only be used sparingly. Finally, you can also use Kronos' Aging against the card. It, however, can't directly kill the card with this ability - you'll need another spell / ability / card to finally kill it.
Installation tip
Make sure you also get and install the brand new version 1.10 of the original game (that is, Orions: Legend of Wizards) BEFORE installing the new pack on top of it. The expansion will NOT flawlessly work with the previous, 1.02 version of the original game.
Cross-posted to (might be worth checking out for additional info / discussions!): PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de.
UPDATE (08/20/2007): PPCT frontpage
UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)
Yet another major article update.
UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)
Yeah, you've guessed right: another update.
UPDATE (11/22/2007): version 1.11 has just been released. It contains several bugfixes and, what is even more important, balance changes. Please read this update BEFORE reading the main review because I haven’t updated the latter in order to keep it consistent.
Fire / Diablo: instead of 4, it only heals the target fire creature for 3 (fortunately, increasing its strength is not changed). Casting the spell costs 1 Fire (instead of 0). This makes this card considerably less recommended than previously.
Fire / Infernal has been made MUCH cheaper (10 instead of 13), which really extends its functionality. While, previously, I had little chance of using this card (I just didn’t have the necessary Fire elements and an additional, preferably low-cost like the now-strengthened “Fire / Imp” cards on the board most of the time), now I’ve found myself using it much more frequently.
Fire / Imp has been made MUCH stronger (14 vs. 9), which makes it much more useful, particularly if, used together with the now much more frequently used Fire / Infernal (you need to wait until you get the necessary Fire elements to summon Infernal) or the, unfortunately, somewhat degraded Fire / Diablo.
Life / Avatar, while it was not only completely useless, but also heavily noxious in the previous version, has become pretty useful now. For 10 Life points, you get a card with a very high HP (and an, unfortunately, pretty mediocre attack). Now, the damage taken is just the opposite of what was before: instead of damaging the owner by the same amount originally received by Avatar, the damage is done in the opposite way. That is, when the owner is damaged, Avatar is also damaged by the same amount. If you can make sure your owner won’t (really) be damaged in the near future, then, Avatar may be a decent pick.
The damage of Lightning Bolt has been increased to 6 (from 5). A decent move – for 4 Air, the previous version was pretty much overpriced, taking the other ways of damaging the enemy owner into account.
As far as Water / Tython is concerned, it’s now slightly stronger. (More HP (16 vs. 15) and attack (4 vs. 3)) and its casting no longer costs water elements. I’m not entirely sure this was a nice idea – after all, Tython has already been THE best and most cost-effective way for mass re-healing. Now, a player )if the other doesn’t have it) owning this card will be next to unbeatable (if he’s playing using the right strategy and is, otherwise, decent)
Bug fixes:
AI no longer casts Scylla's abilities too much. Oh dear, now, we can’t take advantage of this bug to quickly bump up our Water elements…
Leviathan, Nixie, Demon - elemental issues solved. (No more exchange nothing for fire/water).
Fixed cast cost for Spider.
(Note that I’ve removed the inline images because of the four-threshold. Click the links to see the original images.)
In my latest Misc News collection, I’ve already recommended Towers Trap, a brand new game on two mobile (Windows Mobile and Symbian S60) and desktop Windows platforms. GameZoneProject‘s official page is HERE. No matter what platform you have, I really-REALLY recommend giving the trial a try and play through the (initial) tutorial. (Again, you’ll have text rendering problems on VGA Windows Mobile devices). I’m pretty sure you’ll like the game.
In this strategy guide, I give you a far better and more thorough introduction to the game than the demo tutorial of the game. This includes explaining the difference between the available weapon types, the enemy (the “creeps” ), how the maze should be constructed etc. That is, first, make sure you play through the demo. After this, either start the Easy mode - or the 8k one so that you actually have a chance against the creeps. In a nutshell: creeps, your enemies, enter from the top and left. They must be stopped from reaching the other side. If they do, you lose lives. You only have 50 lives to start with, meaning you can only let 49 creeps reach the other side before the end of the game, which, at least in the 8k mode, consists of 80 waves of creep invasion.
The game is very well playable on touchscreen-enabled mobile platforms (and, of course, desktop Windows with mouse / stylus). On touchscreen-less ones like Microsoft Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) or Symbian S60v3, playing the game is a little bit more complicated as the cursor moves pretty slow through the field. Hope a future version adds hotkeys for quickly jumping for example half a screen in a direction (utilizing the currently not used buttons). On the other hand, these platforms support quick weapon selection (using the numbers).
Now, let’s take a look at how the weapons can / should be used.
Weapons at our disposal
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/sniper.jpg
Sniper. Very useful, ranged, anti-ground&air, non-area-damage (non-splash) weapon with multiple functionalities. In the beginning of the game, it’s what you’ll need to buy (unless you play in the 8k mode) to successfully defend yourself against at least the first few waves of creeps until you can purchase more advanced weapons like Shocks and, even better, Earthquakes and/or Cannons.
However, its usage doesn’t end at this! It’s not just an early game weapon. Actually, I’ve found it much more useful than the Cannon & Air combo when talking about ranged weapons. (That is, I’ve lost almost all of my 8k games when I’ve gone mass-Cannon & Air, unlike with mass-Snipers. Both using the recommended three-wide vertical structures, mostly Earthquakes being outside and Cannons / Airs / Snipers inside to be protected from the lockdown of Ice creeps.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/rlaunch.jpg
Rocket Launchers. (Referred to as Luncher.) Much better (almost twice as long) initial range than those of Snipers. It’s also somewhat stronger. However, it costs double the price and can’t be used against air opponents.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/cannon.jpg
Cannon. This very expensive, (only) anti-ground weapon has pretty low (2) damage and moderate range (between that of Sniper and Rocket Launcher).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/shock.jpg
Shock. While it’s pretty weak (5) and has as bad a range as Sniper, it has a very useful feature: it slows down all creeps it manages to shoot at for quite a lot of time. This is essential. However, as it’s mostly because of this (pretty much permanent) side-effect that it’s worth using and, otherwise, has low damage, I don’t recommend going for mass-deployment. In most cases, 10-14 will be sufficient even in end-games: 4-5 Shocks at both entrances and, if you have a long (ground) path, some additional Shocks when the initial shocking effect is eliminated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airrr.jpg
This only anti-air weapon, Air, is much stronger (strength: 20 vs. 8) than the other anti-air-capable one, Sniper and has a much bigger range (10 vs. 6). However, in practice, I’ve found going the mass-Sniper (with some Shocks, placed at both entrances, to slow them down right at entering the field) route better in games. Remember: if you absolutely don’t use Airs and go the mass-Sniper route, it’s only the last two tides of creep airplane ships that may have a chance to get past of your defense (in 8k games).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/arth.jpg
Earthquake is an anti-ground weapon only. You will want to go the (mass-) Earthquake route as soon as possible as it has excellent splash (that is, damaging several creeps at the same time) damage (70; compare this to the 2 of the Cannon, the 8 of Sniper or 10 of Rocket Launcher). Its range isn’t very good (6) and upgrading it is very expensive (compared to, say, Snipers); therefore, you’ll want to place them to the creep path as closely as possible, while backing them up (mostly against the icy opponents) with Snipers and, possibly, some (very few) Cannons to easily get rid of closely-packed creeps / Shocks to make sure the initial slowdown / shock delivered to the creeps is safely repeated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/radar.jpg
Radar. This is a passive structure with the only aim of showing invisible creeps. As is described below, in the “Enemy creeps” section, in general, it suffices to place only two or three of them (fully upgraded) onto the battlefield. Note that the icy creeps also block Radars; during this, invisible creeps will creep in undetected. Therefore, make sure you protect them in the same way as ranged weapons behind Earthquakes.
The (initial) stats of all these weapons is presented in the stats area:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/stats.jpg
This shows the strength in the top left corner (10 in this case), build cost (20) and range (10; bottom left).
Enemy creeps
The most notable creeps you need to pay particular attention to:
The bombs, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru.png, have the bad habit of jumping over empty corners like the following:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru2.jpg
The solution is not leaving any empty corners on the field; always use “covered” or “filled” corners like this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru3.jpg
or this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru4.jpg
The satellites, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/satellites.jpg , are very fast. Shocks are essential for slowing them down.
The airplanes, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airplane.jpg , are the only air enemies. In my 8k practice, I’ve found that while “simple” Snipers deal less considerably damage to them, even a battalion of 8-10 upgraded Airs (the dedicated anti-air weapon), placed in the center of the gaming field, won’t stop at least the last two, most powerful tides of then-superstrong airplanes. Just putting at least four columns of Snipers and one column (as recommended) of Shocks (in the entrance) will almost completely stop even the last two tides of them.
When I tried placing a massive amount of Airs in the center of the battlefield, I generally lost my 8k games because it’s very important to have as many anti-ground ranged weapons in there . These means, most preferably, Earthquakes backed up (where ice can’t affect them) Snipers as Rocket Launchers can’t be used for anti-air and Cannons, while excellent against enemies coming in a bunch, aren’t as powerful as the mass Earthquake + Sniper combo.
The yellow guys, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguys.jpg , come in a group as in http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguysinagroup.jpg. This means Cannons (which do splash damage affecting very adjacent enemies) and, to a lesser degree, Earthquakes are especially useful against them.
The invisible folks, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/invisibleicon.jpg , make it necessary to build Radars on the field. Fortunately, splash damage done by Cannon / Earthquake is effective against them even when invisible if there are visible enemies (very) close to them. I recommend putting two radars in the two entrances (and upgrading them entirely) and another one in the lower right corner to get rid of the remaining ones.
The boss (a black ball - remember the one - see for example THIS - in Epyx’ Impossible Mission?) is worth trying to eliminate at any rate as it gives at least 100 points. That is, try not to bring it to the field with the other enemies so that all your weapons can shoot at it. Also, if the field is doesn’t have many other creeps making it hard to guarantee you can build the tower back, use the tricks like quickly altering the path of these balls by quickly removing a tower - and, when the have come sufficiently close, re-building it. With a loss of 2 dollars a time (if you use a non-upgraded Sniper for the trick), you can give the AI a hard time and keep the two bosses in the maze for quite long, until they indeed get destroyed.
Finally, Ice, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/iceicon.jpg , is by far the worst enemy: it disables all kinds of weapons (even Radars!) in its close vicinity. A very good counter-measure is not using columns of single or even two weapons, but - horizontally - group your weapons into groups of three. The two external weapons should be Earthquakes and the inner one a Sniper. The majority of my screenshots show exactly this setup. This way, even when the Ice creeps disable the outer Earthquakes, the inner Sniper will still be able to shoot at them. Nevertheless, be prepared to see some of them pass even the strongest weapons. Fortunately, this will only be an issue with the last about two waves - at least in 8k games, if you quickly build up your structures - not leaving out the three-wide walls of weapons as can be seen in the following screenshot:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
(Note that the full-screen screenshots have all been taken on a desktop PC to make my life easier (compared to all the hassles of taking screenshots on phones...). The game looks exactly the same on VGA devices. On QVGA ones, the sprites aren't high-res and the non-active (game) area is much smaller.)
An example screenshot of showing these creatures locking down the nearby towers (showing a massive attack; that is, swamping the maze on purpose. Of course, you won’t want to do anything like this, particularly not at the end of the game, where not even splash weapons like Earthquakes or Cannons will be able to destroy most of them)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/massattack.jpg
Here, locked-down towers are white.
Tips & tricks
* in 8k games, it’s worth deploying Shocks right at the beginning in the first row so that the enemies are slowed down right at the beginning, giving your weapons much more time to take them out. Also, make sure that if you manage to build up a multi-column defensive structure like the one in the screenshot below:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
then, place some additional Shocks in the points far away from the start because the shock (and the consequential slowdown) goes away after a while. In the above shot, there’s one in the lower right corner and the path is built up in a way that it takes the enemies back to the upper block of several long-range Shocks, making sure that all your enemies are slowed down (again). Of course, the artificial intelligence of the app gives priority to shooting at enemies having been further on the field; that is, in a structure like this the Shocks will shoot at the enemies coming from down and not just entering the field. Of course, this is what one would expect.
I show you three shots of 8k games I successfully completed. Now, based on the rest of this Strategy Guide, you’ll understand why I’ve gone the mass-Earthquake + Sniper route (with some Shocks in addition to slow down the enemies).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-2.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-3.png.jpg
* there is a nice trick worth keeping in mind: the game constantly evaluates the shortest path and dynamically re-routes the enemies if it founds a shorter path to the exit. This means if you quickly destroy a tower, the game might re-route the enemies to go through the hole. While this can be pretty dangerous (I’ve lost several games because I wasn’t able to replace the tower fast enough - if you try to build it while there’re enemies on the ground / over it, it won’t work; then, you’ll need to re-select the tower icon to build and try to build it again) if the last (or the just-coming) enemies are still pretty near, if they aren’t, it can pay off by forcing them to go backwards. Some screenshots showing removing a low-cost Sniper (to minimize costs - remember you always lose 20% at every sell) at the top of the center column:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
(the enemies have left the tower but the shortest path to the target would still be through the hole created by removing the tower)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick2.jpg
(the enemies still under the newly-created hole start moving backward, which is also shown by their “faces” looking up. During this, they take extra damage from your weapons they’re passing again)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick3.jpg
(another screenshot - from a bit later)
Of course, try not to wait too long - rebuild your tower before it’s too late and the enemies start pouring over the new hole:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick4.jpg
Problems
CPU usage. While it certainly doesn’t necessarily need 100% CPU, it still uses it (as of the just-released 1.1 version), resulting it most CPU’s chewing through the battery very-very fast. On the desktop, you’ll want to force underclocking; for example, with the free(!) Notebook Hardware Control. For example, on my 1 GHz Centrino-based HP TC1100 tablet, forcing the system to remain at 600 MHz radically decreased overheating and battery usage. You can do the same on non-VGA Windows Mobile devices too (the game is a bit slow on VGA ones). Note that it’s also pretty quickly chews through the batteries on Symbian S60: it consumes about 1.2W (as opposed to the ~0.3W when the game isn’t running and the backlight is on). Finally, also note that, on Symbian, the current version seem to have some sound problems (tested on the v21 Nokia N95).
Speed problems on some high-resolution (VGA) devices. Strangely, it’s pretty slow on my Windows Mobile 6.1-based, 624 MHz / PXA-270 Dell Axim x51v (which is one of the, unfortunately, very few models to come with a hardware underclocker utility built-in) - definitely slower than on the PXA310-based, VGA iPAQ 210. (This means underclocking the Axim to 208 MHz renders the game plain unplayable). I had no speed problems running it on QVGA devices (the 195 MHz TI OMAP 850-based WM 6.1 HTC Wizard and the 400 MHz PXA-255-based WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210), on the other hand.
No upgrade info is given on the new range and strength - unlike with some of the comparable games; most importantly, Desktop Tower Defense (see below). With the former, only beforehand - after the upgrade, you’ll already see the new range by clicking the tower. An example of this is shown HERE, where the last-but-one Sniper is selected having all the upgrades and, therefore, a very impressive range.
It’s not possible to cancel the process of selling a tower. This is really bad as it’s very easy to click selling a tower on a Pocket PC (this is less of an issue on non-touchscreen platforms and desktop Windows). If enemies start pouring over the newly-created hole, you may be doomed and may need to restart the game. And, if no such thing happens, you still need to purchase the tower again (and upgrade it if necessary), which means a loss of 20% money.
The good
Multiplatform (both WinMo platforms, Symbian S60v3 and desktop Windows)
Hi-res on VGA (albeit can be a bit slow on some devices)
Really-really addictive
Trial version not crippled and can be started several times before it expires
Online high score table
Compared to Desktop Tower Defense:
You may already know Desktop Tower Defense (DTD for short). It has a bit similar weapons and strategy to use; for example, DTD doesn’t have any invisible enemies. A quick comparison between its weapons and their Towers Trap counterparts:
Pellet Tower = Sniper
Squirt Tower = no real counterpart (it isn’t an equivalent of Rocket Launcher as the latter is anti-ground only)
Dart Tower = Cannon (with the same splash damage)
Swarm Tower = Air
Frost Tower = Shock (with splash damage; Shock doesn’t have splash damage, unfortunately)
Note that as it doesn’t have anything like the icy enemy (locking down nearby towers), the TDD example mazes available for example HERE aren’t as useful under Towers Trap. You may still want to give them a look.
Unfortunately, there’re no hotkeys in Towers Trap, not even with the help of external button redefiner apps to, for example, quickly start the next round etc. In this respect, TDD is definitely better. Hope this shortcoming will also be fixed.
!! FUN APPLICATION, NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL WORLD AVIATION !!
For all those flight-sim enthusiasts out there: I have created this PFD (primary flight display) which shows the speed, the altitude the coards and the attitude similar to a real PFD display in an airplane cockpit.
Although the application has been created and tested on an HTC HD2, it might work on other devices as well. Internel or external GPS and the HTC G-Sensor are required. It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Just keep in mind that this is the first version of the program, so there might be *some* improvement potential.
A screenshot of the program is also attached.
Pls let me know what you think about it.
Thanks.
As a pilot I cannot find any sense in this, sorry m8.
Useless for aviation.
Useful might be an HSI-App, an RAIM-availability-check-App, a NOTAM-APP and so on. An artificial horizon on a handheld device... No, not good...
Title correction...
It is just for fun, not intended for real world aviation.
I will change the title so that it becomes more clear.
As an airbus pilot I like it! Lots of scope for further development, keep up the good work !
when I read your discrip, I had something totaly dif pictured in my mind. guess Im falling back on my sail plane lesson days.
I had round face dial and a yaw bubble pictured.
While this is cool, I would prefer to see the old analog style with an altimeter that you can set your start altitude and a yaw bubble, rather than the HUD style. just IMO.
And yes this is just for fun.
Keep it up, I will follow your project with intrest.
cheers
Good Work mate
While some are critical in their opinion I'm pleased with your app.
Keep up the good work mate and for all others who are not so encouraging ...... what do you want for an app a full blown flight simulator, the guys making an effort to develop something and sharing it for a free with us so to help him out at least .... I mean at least encourage him and make some constructive criticisms.
It doesn't cost to be nice and help to motivate others...........
Customize it
Just as a hint for those of you, who would want to use other bitmaps. I have designed the application in a way which allows you to modify or extend it. If you look into the applications program folder, you will find an XML file describing the layout of the display. You may also change or add bitmaps. The bitmaps are all located in the
HTML:
resources
subfolder. If you change the size of the offset of bitmaps, you will have to adjust some values in the XML file as well.
As you can see there all items are drawn in 3d space.
However, I am working on a HSI as suggested before. I will post it later this week.
Known issue:
- After running the application 3 or 4 times, OpenGL is not working properly anymore (not able to create rendering context). This is an issue of OpenGL. You have to restart your device for OpenGL to work again. If anyone has a solution, please let me know.
leihen said:
It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That would be awesome!
Cool app
Certainly would be better than no attitude information in the event of a vacuum and/or elec failure.Even if just to make flying the performance instruments a bit easier.
I would defintely like to see a HSI app possibly with an open (editable)waypoint database.Anyone interested!?
Keep up the good work!
I love it. Thanks so much...
I just wonder if settings could be made permanent until being changed again so as to start the application without my having to select REAL and AVERAGE everytime.
And as a proud HTC HD2 owner, the display could me made much
larger indeed...
Congratulations and thanks again.
This is a fine app with a lot of potential esp. for UL-pilots as an emergency backup if UL-airplane-pfd fails.
Would be nice if indicators are bigger and the layout equals to Flymap, Skymap or MGL-layout
There is enough place for a nice big yaw indicator. Maybe You can get some code from GPS-tracker V2.0 (MooNah) in this forum, it already has a full working PFD incorporated.
Good luck with further devs., when next version is online I will try it in my gyroplane.
I think it's fun!!!!!
next step: build a flightsim for wm where we could use this
You will be in real danger....if you do so.
troed said:
This is a fine app with a lot of potential esp. for UL-pilots as an emergency backup if UL-airplane-pfd fails.
Would be nice if indicators are bigger and the layout equals to Flymap, Skymap or MGL-layout
There is enough place for a nice big yaw indicator. Maybe You can get some code from GPS-tracker V2.0 (MooNah) in this forum, it already has a full working PFD incorporated.
Good luck with further devs., when next version is online I will try it in my gyroplane.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As you will easily see, this PFD horizon responds to gravity, that is, to the accelerometers installed in the phone.
It has no gyros, no way to provide PITCH ATTITUDE, WHATSOEVER.
If you keep the phone perfectly vertical and quickly move forward (accelerate) it will SURELY show a pitch up...pretty much the same effects that a stand-by compass shows when changing speed (remember that?...accelerate-north, decelerate-south).
You will have the very same pitch information as the one given by a bottle full
af water suspended from a string, or a can of Coke : and it will KILL YOU as well as your passengers (if any), not to mention people on the ground.
The only usable parts of this FUN APP (as named by the author himself ) in aviation are:
1. True track (not magnetic heading).
2. Altitude (neither QNH, nor QFE related, but of course; unless your flying field happens to be at sea level and actual atmosphere matches the ISA atmosphere parameters exactly). Remember that QNH variations as well as heat will make the GPS readings very different to that of your altimeter, as height of the air column will vary a +/-4% every +/-10 degrees Celsius.
Example. Airplane flying at Flight Level 300. QNH in the area 1023. Terrain at 2000 feet. Atmosphere is ISA+15.
Therefore if we move the 1013.25 setting to 1023 there will be a reading increase from 30.000 feet to 30300 (calibrated altitude, QNH related).
That is 28.300 feet above ground (we start with this as the air column height for the calculation). Since ISA is +15 we add 15/10 times 4% and we have 28300*15/10*4/100= 1698. True altitude is 30300+1698=31988
So we are cruising at FL300, 30.000 feet pressure altitude, 30.300 feet calibrated altitude (QNH related), 31988 above sea level, 29988 feet above ground level.
GPS WILL SHOW 31988 FEET.
3. Ground speed ( neither IAS nor CAS nor EAS nor TAS), as provided by GPS system. Remember that your airplane aerodynamics are related to calibrated speeds....you will stall if too slow ore destroy the airframe if to quick !!!! But you can navigate and make good your track, of course.
Hope I have made myself understood....and that you read this at the earlier !!!
Hi!
It quite very good if the second part under we have the route. I am using the Oziexplore program, it can creates the route, and apear on screen. if this soft applied to that once, could be perfected!
Thanks
great app mate..just for fun...
Nice work thank you. On future can you make like pilot cocpit with all dash boards like in Flith simulator game if this possible. Thank you
leihen said:
!! FUN APPLICATION, NOT INTENDED TO BE USED IN REAL WORLD AVIATION !!
For all those flight-sim enthusiasts out there: I have created this PFD (primary flight display) which shows the speed, the altitude the coards and the attitude similar to a real PFD display in an airplane cockpit.
Although the application has been created and tested on an HTC HD2, it might work on other devices as well. Internel or external GPS and the HTC G-Sensor are required. It is planned to add a serial communication channel to a PC server component which allows to use this little proggy with MS Flight Simulator displaying the flight parameters so you can get rid of the cockpit panel on your primary display.
Just keep in mind that this is the first version of the program, so there might be *some* improvement potential.
A screenshot of the program is also attached.
Pls let me know what you think about it.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Indeed as an Ultralight-Gyroplane-Pilot I like this app and since the Horizon-tab in GPS-Tracker by MooNah doesn´t work right now this could be alternative as a a last resort-backup if glass-cockpit instruments (MGL-Avionics) fail ...... (better to have this than nothing at all and I also have Flymap PPC on my HD2 if main Moving map Nav. fails)
This app has great potential since it reads the infos from G-sensor and GPS.
For the future dev. if I might add my wishlist:
1. Add to screen: slide-indicator and compass, Altitude
2. slightly more refined graphics
As a start: BRAVO, hope You have the patience to go on developing this nice app ( like Dunc001, that made in 100s of hours of work a professional weather app - Duncans Weather Panel - see there - that is more reliable than many professional aviation weather briefings).
I bookmarked this thread and hope for further developments by U
Congratulations
like the Android solution ixGyro:
http://www.ixellence.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227&Itemid=274&lang=de
JHimmelbauer said:
like the Android solution ixGyro:
http://www.ixellence.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=227&Itemid=274&lang=de
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Jepp, EXACTLY THIS would be cool on the HD2 on WinMo (Android not running on mine) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
troed said:
Jepp, EXACTLY THIS would be cool on the HD2 on WinMo (Android not running on mine) !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
a other solution for Windows Mobile is "Inclinometer77" -
visit http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=6677074
This App goes in the right direction, but unfortunately not to use without Gyro in a Plane, but a nice game for pilots ;-)
Happy Landings
Because I probably never continue in my project, I decided public what I have at the moment. App has many bugs and you can load only map named room01. Data will be downloaded after first start (FTP server not among the best) ~15MB. If you have any problem with downloading data, unzip this zip to Android/data/. I enabled developer mode by default, so we have access to everything It uses jPCT-AE engine.
What you can find: per pixel point, direction and spot lighting, depth of field, shadows, parallax mapping, normal mapping, blur, motion blur, image distortions, interactive lever, cap, buttons...
NOTE: This is only for high-end devices.
APK file
Thread in jPCT forum
Variables saved in Android/data/mygame/config.cfg
Code:
dev
engineDebug
showFps
antiAliasing
padAutoHide
padVisibility
firePadVisible
maxFPS
fpsLimit
xPositionOfPad
yPositionOfPad
cameraSensitivity
xPositionOfFireButton
yPositionOfFireButton
xPositionOfEquip
yPositionOfEquip
comperssTexture
centerCamera
checkForUpdates
textureQuality
menuTrans
traslationMenuEffect
saveLogs
invertCameraY
gameGUITransparency
lightGlowEffect
cameraFilter
shadingMode
Map definition is in XML file in downloaded data, you can simple change whole map, objects, textures,...
I fixed a few bugs...
Looks nice. Runs good on htc one x
Sent from my EndeavorU using Tapatalk 4
How fast is it running on your device?
Hey guys,
Why is there no app that uses your front camera and projects a keyboard on the surface of the table? You look at your phones screen and type away on the desk. This would be a pretty cool app. Do you know if there is something like this around?
Thanks
rethan2 said:
Hey guys,
Why is there no app that uses your front camera and projects a keyboard on the surface of the table? You look at your phones screen and type away on the desk. This would be a pretty cool app. Do you know if there is something like this around?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's a little difficult to hold your phone and type at the same time.. you'd need a stand which would kind of get in your way.
There's tech out there with eye tracking technology where you could use Holo glasses to type with your eyes although traditional typing is still phenomenally faster. And mouth tracking technology w/ face cam that converts how you move your mouth/tongue to text might be a better tech idea since it could work in any noise level environment and be faster than as fast as most typers can type.
Some day we'll have signal detectors on our heads intercepting directions we think.
But aside from the ergonomic issues, your idea is fun.
Depth sensors
rethan2 said:
Why is there no app that uses your front camera and projects a keyboard on the surface of the table
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Kinect, Touch+, Leap Motion, Nimble Sense, Project Tango, SoftKinetic, Intel RealSense, etc. are all various combinations of hardware and software to detect depth and gestures.
There was also a MIT and Microsoft article about the ability to use infrared LED lights and machine learning techniques to turn a simple single-lens camera into a 3-D one.
technologyreview/com/news/529986/turning-a-regular-smartphone-camera-into-a-3-d-one/
However, at this point, there seems to be a shift to depth cameras, such as the Intel RealSense that is already integrated into laptops.
Time-of-flight (TOF) cameras for point cloud data have more potential,.
It would need to be built into your phone to be cost-effective, and even then, look how pricey Project Tango is right now.
Intel RealSense is in the HP Sprout (has a projector), but it can’t do surface touch yet.
3divi has a "turn a surface into touch surface" prototype Youtube video (youtube/com/watch?v=upGTLrSUa5c ) that uses Kinect, and a Pico projector.
Touch+ was the biggest help last year, as it was only $75 for surface touch, but the people behind it can’t even get the drivers out yet.
Check out Wired’s article on the UI of Magic Leap:
>Magic Leap UI: Totems: cameras on headset could track any piece of material that’s been defined as “mouse.”
>Shows keyboard made from soft rubber that would deform and provide haptic feedback while HMD overlaid images.
>AR system may render virtual computer keyboard on surface of rectangular aluminum
wired/com/2015/01/magic-leaps-vision-for-virtual-reality/
It's like the Optimus Maximum keyboard of 2008, where every keyboard key has an OLED display so that you can remap any key to do whatever you want.
It's like that, except it doesn't cost $2000.
Eye-tracking
TryHardBlueonMac said:
There's tech out there with eye tracking technology where you could use Holo glasses to type with your eyes although traditional typing is still phenomenally faster.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
An Android SDK for eye-tracking was revealed at CES.
dailydot/com/technology/eye-tribe-eye-tracking-android-sdk-ces-2015/
I think that modifying the camera for eye-tracking is cheap, and most likely much cheaper than changing the camera to a depth sensor like in Project Tango.
With surface touch, you still might be looking at the surface some of the time, like in the dual screen HP Sprout.
With eye-tracking, you could have an eye-tracking “select-what-am-looking-at” button.
Look, touch an easy-to-reach “tap-where-I’m-looking” button, look, and then touch the same button again.
You don’t have to keep changing your hand and finger positions between each tap.
For typing:
>Microsoft patents eye-tracking keyboard software
>The idea’s just like swipe-based keyboard software, but instead of tracking the motion of your fingertip, the system tracks eye movement.
pocketnow/com/2014/12/24/eye-tracking-keyboard
Automated lip reading
TryHardBlueonMac said:
And mouth tracking technology w/ face cam that converts how you move your mouth/tongue to text might be a better tech idea since it could work in any noise level environment and be faster than as fast as most typers can type.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It’s a tough problem, but people are working on it:
>“The first problem for automated lip reading is face and lip recognition.
This has improved in leaps and bounds in recent years.
A more difficult challenge is in recognizing, extracting and categorizing the geometric features of the lips during speech.
This is done by measuring the height and width of the lips as well as other features such as the shape of the ellipse bounding the lips, the amount of teeth on view and the redness of the image, which determines the amount of tongue that is visible.
Hassanat’s own visual speech recognition system is remarkably good.
His experiments achieve an average success rate of 76 percent, albeit in carefully controlled conditions.
The success rate is even higher for women because of the absence of beards and mustaches.
All this suggests that there is significant potential for visual speech recognition systems in the future, particularly as an aid to other forms of speech recognition.”
– Ahmad Hassanat at Mu’tah University in Jordan
technologyreview/com/view/530641/the-challenges-and-threats-of-automated-lip-reading/
TryHardBlueonMac said:
Some day we'll have signal detectors on our heads
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
EEG
I’ve heard about the Emotiv EEG.
Just a few basic commands that are paired up with other inputs, like eye-tracking, would be useful.
E.g. of some adequate, basic commands:
* 1) open menu of on-screen shortcuts
* 2) select-what-I’m-looking-at (using eye tracker)
* 3) no/back/cancel
What Emotiv offers:
> “In order to provide consistency and a simple range of possible actions, each user profile will contain space for training data for up to 15 different commands, which are internally labelled COMMAND1 to COMMAND15.
With an eye tracker, you probably don’t need that many brain commands if you’re just going to be using the mind for a “Yes,-select-what-I'm-looking-at” or “back” for on-screen, virtual buttons.
Thought functions merely as the switch.